Report: Ja'Quan Newton Cuts Villanova from His List of Prospective Schools

Just a day after the Villanova Wildcats received the commitment of point guard Phil Booth (Mount St. Joseph's/Baltimore, MD) for the class of 2014, they received some disheartening news from another potential point guard.

Local product Ja'Quan Newton (Neumann-Gorretti/Philadelphia, PA) released the list of his final six schools on Wednesday and the Wildcats failed to make that list.

Newton, who is ranked 67th in the ESPN 100, was also considering Big Five schools Temple and St. Joseph's.

Both of those teams were also dropped from Newton's list of prospective schools.

As for the teams who did make the cut, the group of six features some national powers and a few up-and-coming programs. 

The complete list of six, in no particular order, is as follows, Miami (FL), Minnesota, Oregon, Syracuse, Texas A&M and UCLA.

The good news for the Wildcats, if there is any at the moment in the case of Newton, is that none of the six prospective schools that are finalists on Newton's list are members of the Big East Conference.

Old rival Syracuse, who are now in the ACC, are the team that are geographically closest to the Main Line but with no nonconference series between the Wildcats and Orange in the future, it looks like Newton will not play against his former potential suitors in the regular season.

According to ESPN, the Wildcats now have four potential recruiting targets left for the class of 2014.

Of those four players, the best available is ESPN 100 member Ahmed Hill (Aquinas/Augusta, GA) but the Wildcats will have to face a stiff uphill battle in the chase for Hill's signature.

That means that the Wildcats will most likely go after one of the three players remaining on the list that includes shooting guard Robert Johnson (Benedictine College/Richmond, VA), center Johnathon Wilkins (La Lumiere School, La Porte, IN) and point guard Kevin Zabo (Brewster Academy/Wolfeboro, NH).

Expect the Wildcats to sign one of those three players to bring their overall haul for the class of 2014 up to three, which would be the same amount of players arriving with the class of 2013.

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